


Chemistry

by Kleenexwoman, mayamaia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/pseuds/Kleenexwoman, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayamaia/pseuds/mayamaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon asks Mark why he's stopped spending time with him and Illya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kleenexwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/gifts).



> For kleenexwoman, who will never stop being special. Thank you for doing this with me. We traded off writing sections.

"Hey Mark, do you have a moment?"

Mark Slate had been on his way out of the cafeteria, but he couldn't politely ignore the hand on his shoulder. "Sure Naps, what is it you need?"

Napoleon Solo shifted on his feet. "Ah, well, I don't really know how to put this... How are you, I guess?"

Slate replied with a mask of friendliness, "Oh well enough, old chap, why do you ask?"

"Um. Yes, ah. I haven't actually talked with you, in quite a long time. Not since Illya and I became partners, actually."

"Oh." So Solo had noticed.

"Is there a reason?"

He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. "No reason."

"Look, did I do something wrong? Say something wrong?" Napoleon looked at him with earnest concern.

"No."

"Did he? I mean, you're the one who introduced me to our young recruit. I thought you liked him."

"I do. Bright young chap."

"Help me out here, old man."

"I'm not sure how. You've been busy. It's good to see you two getting along." Mark smiled, if a little tightly.

"I'm flattered, I'm sure, but I'm not the one who stopped eating at the corner table. Nor is Illya, and that table seats four."

"I've been busy."

"Mark. I'm a spy. I saw you at the other end of the cafeteria."

Mark looked at Napoleon and didn't answer.

"Why, Mark? Please. We were your friends, a year ago. What went wrong?"

********  
The fact of the matter was, nothing had gone wrong. The problem was that something had gone right.

Not every agent had a partner. Partnerships weren't things that were assigned--they were de facto and often accidental. Some people put it down to experience, but Mark knew it was all about chemistry. You had it, or you didn't. Partners who had it got along well even when they didn't get along, knew what the other was thinking, how they would react. Partners who didn't...they didn't last very long. Often, those partnerships ended messily, figuratively or literally.

Mark had enjoyed working with Napoleon. They were alike--had the same taste in women, cars, and stupid jokes. They'd never fought, even when Mark thought they might have needed to clear the air between them. Any grievances were set aside, buried under an air of fellowship. But Mark, at least, was no mind-reader. He'd had to pay attention to Napoleon, learn his thought processes, his reactions to things, what triggered his bouts of introspection or tenderness. It had been work. It had been worth it. And he'd learned that despite their superficial similarities, they were not very much alike.

People seemed to think that Napoleon had been Illya's first friend at UNCLE, the one who'd taken the wayward Russian under his wing. It wasn't really so. Mark and Illya had been casual friends at Cambridge, a long time ago, and Mark had always gotten the impression that Illya was a terribly shy little thing. When Illya had made his appearance at UNCLE headquarters, Mark had taken it upon himself to show his old college acquaintance around, even introduced him to his buddy Napoleon.

Illya wasn't actively indifferent towards Napoleon, which Mark took as success. It was an achievement simply that Illya not be indifferent towards anyone. As for himself, Mark was looking forward to getting to know Illya more, to plumb the depths of that quick mind he'd only gotten to know in muttered, unrepeated asides in class, or rare, quasi-drunken nights at a local pub.

Mark had been assigned to Peru for a week and had simply been confident that Illya would be in good hands. He'd returned, and it was if Napoleon and Illya had known each other all their lives. They had inside jokes. Inside jokes! Napoleon had asked Illya to have drinks at his apartment. Mark had never seen the inside of Napoleon's apartment in the two years they'd worked together. Not once.

The decision was painful but simple. It wasn't even up to Mark, it was up to what Napoleon and Illya had together. Chemistry. Some partners had it, some partners didn't, and it would certainly be less painful to let them work together than to try to drag it out with Napoleon and get in the middle of what would certainly be a superior, even world-saving, duo. Mark withdrew. And kept himself withdrawn.

*************  
Of course, it wasn't really as if Mark could reply with all of that. Even if he could do so past the more obvious objections Solo might raise, he suspected that, aired aloud, they might begin to make him sound a hair too sorry for himself. Yet here was Napoleon, awaiting an answer.

Mark chose the friendly tack. "Look, Naps, I don't know if you've noticed, but you and Illya look happy as clams huddled up together in the mess. Three's a crowd and, much as I like you two, you don't need me around muddying the waters."

Napoleon looked at him steadily for a moment, but before Mark grew uncomfortable enough to shift his feet, Napoleon's face shifted in a slow smile. "Illya could probably handle having his waters muddied by more than just one friend. As for me, Mark, I have never shied away from packing and overpacking my social calender. I will absolutely make time for you because I am happy as a clam, as you so colorfully put it, having you crammed in there."

Mark blinked, then realized that Solo was looking far too innocent for the innuendo to have been anything but intentional. His face began to grow hot. Solo took advantage of his unbalance to press on more seriously, his voice lowered and more urgent.

"Besides, old man, getting in the way isn't an issue. Illya and my friendship IS just as close as it seems, and it's the best thing that ever happened to me. He and I are better together, not just at what we do but better people. If you can't sit at a table with us and see us as the individuals you did before, Mark... you don't have to. You could try getting to know us as a unit instead."

***************  
It took Mark until Monday to decide once and for all that he wanted to give friendship with Illya and Napoleon--the both of them--a shot. Napoleon made it easier, of course, by waving to Mark from across the cafeteria like an overexcited teenager, and Mark was a little gratified and a little stung to see Illya rolling his eyes.

He slid into the empty seat and set down his tray, not knowing what to say. If Napoleon tried to say anything comforting, anything therapeutic, he was pretty sure he'd just leave and that would be the end of it. Nobody liked to be patronized.

Illya, uncharacteristically, was the one to break the ice. "I apologize for Napoleon," he said. "I believe he's forgotten the  
concept of 'subtle'."

"I know what it is," Napoleon said, and quirked an eyebrow at Illya. "I choose to ignore it on occasion.'

Illya segued into a long, ludicrous story about Napoleon's cover being blown in Switzerland due to the senior agent's being unable to remember the difference between French with an Italian accent and Italian with a French accent. "The way he said arrividerci--I thought we were going to be shot." Mark didn't so much concentrate on the story itself as he did the way Illya moved his hands, the quick way he spoke. Like he was nervous.

"He was never any good at accents," Mark said. "This one time in Brazil..."

It was like riding a bike without training wheels for the first time. He concentrated on Illya first, flicking his eyes to Napoleon.  
Napoleon interrupted in the middle of the story, faux-stung, to correct a small detail about a gorgeous blonde in disguise, and Mark laughed and agreed. "Of course, you remember..."

Mark's anxiety fell away as the lunch hour went on, and he began to see how the two men had changed. Napoleon seemed more open than he ever had, more willing to laugh at himself, to share things--the veneer of the playboy was gone, replaced by a gentle self-mockery. Illya had opened up amazingly, no longer muttered things under his breath or waited awkwardly for a conversational lull that did not come--he joked, laughed, corrected, disagreed.

But the food was gone and the lunch hour was gone, and Mark was the first to look at his watch and mention the time. "It was good to catch up with you both," he said.

Napoleon caught up with him a few minutes later, a gentle hand on Mark's shoulder. "That wasn't a one-time invitation."

"You get on together very well," Mark said. "How did you do it? With Illya? My god, he was so shy in college, and he's..." He glanced back at Illya, who was still at the table. The blonde was still chewing on a French fry, and had opened a thick novel to read--far more like the Illya Mark had known before.

"I guess I annoy him so much he can't keep it in," Napoleon said with a wry smile. "You know me. I don't allow people to be shy."

And there was the crux of it. Mark went along with the way people presented themselves, willing to play along. Napoleon was pushier, dug deeper. He'd seen something in Illya that Mark hadn't seen or had been content to leave alone, and he'd gone for it. And he'd changed himself in the process.

***********  
"Napoleon. Napoleon. ...You aren't paying any attention to me..." Illya scowled, then with some amusement calmly said, "Your feet are webbed and there is algae on your toes. Also you have spilled chocolate on your tie."

"...I what?" Napoleon frantically looked down and brushed his tie. "No I.... Oh. Sorry Illya, what were you saying?"

"I don't see why I should bother to interrupt your rapt gaze at the new and very female agent."

"Oh, I don't think it will be wise for me to pursue her in that manner."

"Shock of shocks." Illya's face was bland and his voice flat, as to say if he wouldn't believe it without more proof.

"Hm, well, I would rather not see Mark turn into Papa Bear over a minor indiscretion. He seems happy though."

Illya glanced over and smiled. "Yes he does, doesn't he?"

Napoleon smiled himself. "Hmm, yes. Well, shall we go over there and make friends, partner?"

Illya shrugged good-naturedly and stood. Napoleon rose behind him and together they went to welcome the redhead who had monopolized their friend's attention.


End file.
